Archive for the ‘Bugatti Veyron’ Category

The price of buying a Bugatti Veyron will set you back at least $1.5 million, but the costs attached to owning one can run high too. An oil change, for example, will set you back $20,000. A new set of tires will hit you like a brick in the head at close to $50,000 per set. Add up the years you plan to own a Veyron, and you’re looking at maintenance costs that could reach around $400,000 to $500,000. Be thankful, then, that Bugatti is introducing a Loyalty Maintenance Program for the Veyron that will help reduce operating costs while maintaining the condition of your million-dollar supercar.

“You can get that seal after your beloved supercar goes through a thorough inspection that includes testing and replacing parts”

If you’re an owner of a Bugatti Veyron, this new program is a God-send for you. Not only does it help you maintain the condition of your supercar, it has the potential to help soften the blow of the operating costs attached to the Veyron. We know that these costs could get completely out of hand, so the measure of protection Bugatti is offering through its Loyalty Maintenance Program is a big deal.

Before you start jumping for joy, your Veyrons need to earn a Bugatti Certified seal. You can get that seal after your beloved supercar goes through a thorough inspection that includes testing and replacing parts, ranging from small mechanical bits like spark plugs to full-blown body panels. Updates are also included in the service. In the end, the Veyron receives a Bugatti Certified seal, and its warranty is extended.

In a statement, Franco Utzeri, head of Bugatti Certified and Financial Services, said that the new program is a major step for Bugatti and owners of the Veyron. “Our quality program has been significantly enhanced by the Loyalty Maintenance Program,” he said. “This means that our customer support has reached the high level of individualization that customers already learned to know and appreciate when they purchased their Bugatti. No other brand is as near to the customer as Bugatti – and that applies to the duration of ownership.“

“Bugatti is offering several different maintenance packages so you can get the package that best suits your use of the supercar”

Speaking of the duration, Bugatti is offering several different maintenance packages so you can get the package that best suits your use of the supercar. This includes an Extended Warranty Plus program that runs up to 15 years, something that no other automaker in the world offers. “Our customers use their Bugattis in very individual ways,” Chris Kelly, head of Bugatti Customer Service, said. “Many owners enjoy driving their car every day while others see it as an automotive work of art in their private collection. This means that individual customers have very different expectations of service. We can now meet these expectations much more effectively, in line with our customers’ wishes.”

Make no mistake, Bugatti’s new Loyalty Maintenance Program is as important to the automaker as it is to Veyron owners, especially when you consider how rare and valuable Veyrons are becoming. It’s important for the company to maintain premium physical, mechanical, and technical quality of its models. This is a natural step in accomplishing that goal.

$15,000 can buy a lot of things. You can split that money up and pay for a year’s worth of rent. You can indulge on something like the Tonino Lamborghini Alpha One smartphone and save the rest for a rainy day. You can even use all of it in one go and buy a Ford Fiesta. All those things are on the table, though you can also use your $15 grand on something far less useful, though still pretty awesome: a 1:8 scale model of the Bugatti Veyron Vitesse.

I’ve seen my fair share of immaculate supercar scale models, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never seen anything quite like Amalgam’s scale model of the Veyron Vitesse. The details of this scaled down Veyron Vitesse are incredible. All the little minutiae of the supercar’s design are accurately depicted to the extent that you’d be forgiven if you thought that it was an actual Veyron Vitesse that was shrunk down by some kind of shirking device that Amalgam has at its disposal. Jokes aside, the company did say that the scale model is completely hand-crafted using the original CAD data supplied by no less than Bugatti itself. The involvement of the French automaker is enough reason to understand why the accuracy of the details of the Veyron is absolutely stunning. Amalgam even said that it takes 310 hours to build one scale model, and that’s just one part of a development process that roughly takes 3,000 hours, the equivalent of 125 days! It’s no wonder that the whole thing costs $15,000, and even after talking about it, I still haven’t gone to the best part of the scale model.

Mecum Auctions has been involved with collector cars for almost three decades now, growing from a small family business to selling roughly 20,000 lots per year. In addition to top-dollar automobiles, Mecum also offers vintage motorcycles, collectible road art, and believe it or not, tractors. But you and I don’t really care about all that other stuff – we’re in it for the cars, from cutting-edge performance machines to ironclad muscle cars, antique classics to no-frills racers. Thankfully, Mecum has the entire spread on tap. The auction house averages more than one event per month, but one of the biggest is in California for Monterey Car Week. Roughly 600 vehicles are slated to hit the block for 2016, and we’ve got some of the most interesting of them profiled right here.

Highlighting the lineup for Monterey is the Modern Speed Collection, a host of ultra-high-end speed-mobiles from the present day. Mecum calls it “the apex of 21st Century automotive performance,” and picking through the offerings, I’m inclined to agree. Think rare, gorgeous, and absurdly quick.

TopSpeed will be on the scene this year, bringing you all the latest. Read on for a taste of what’s in store.

Update 08-20-2016 5:00 P.M. PST We’re on the scene at Mecum and have updated this preview with a welcome video. Check it out in the preview below.

TMB Art Metal has done some awesome working in the past, offering keepsakes made from the metals of various cars. Different items have been made from vehicles like the Bugatti Type 35, Jaguar D-Type, the Spitfire, and even the Flying Scotsman train. More recently, the company created a series of poppy pins out of British shell fuses from the Somme battlefield to pay tribute to the soldiers killed during battle back in 1916. Now, TMB Art Metal is paying tribute to the Bugatti Veyron with a set of very special cufflinks made from the wheel of a Bugatti Veyron OZ Racing.

Most of the cufflinks are composed of the high-quality aluminum from the wheel of a Veyron OZ Racing in the design of the Veyron’s 12-spoke alloy wheels. The cufflinks are handcrafted and feature a silver rim and silver spokes. The wheels are crafted out of bronze to give a gold appearance, but can also be had in chrome black to offer a different, but equally gorgeous look. Every set of cufflinks from with a certificate of authenticity.

Christopher Bennett, the found of TMB Art Metal, said, “With the launch of the new Chiron, Bugatti has underlined its ability to make the greatest sports cars on the planet. These cuff links pay tribute to another of Bugatti’s glorious creations, and are a much more affordable way for owners and fans alike to carry a piece of the Veyron around with them.”

The cufflinks are priced at £295, or about $380, and can be purchased by contacting TMB Art Metal directly. All told, they look great and are sure to make any Bugatti enthusiast pretty happy.

When I was 13 years old, the closest thing I could ever get to driving a car was to take control of the wheel as my father pulled into our driveway. That was it. I didn’t get to actually drive a car legally until I got into college, and even then, I only did it sparingly. So imagine what it must be like to be 13-year-old Armik Aghakhani, who was allowed by his father to go all-out on his car. Oh, and that car just happened to be a Bugatti Veyron.

Before anybody starts thinking about how irresponsible Steven Aghakhani was for doing that, let’s put some context behind this story. Armik may only be a year into being a “teen,” but he’s already an accomplished driver, having started racing karts at the tender age of seven. As soon as he is legally allowed, the younger Aghakhani hopes to star racing in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo, an ambitious goal even for a young whippersnapper. Fortunately, he’s got a good coach in 2013 Formula Drift champion Michael Essa teaching him the racing ropes.

So back to the Veyron drive. The ride occurred at the recently held Shift S3ctor Airstrip Attack event in Colorado. With the event falling on Father’s Day, Steven gave his young racing prodigy a chance to go all out on his Veyron, and like the racing student that he is, Armik gamely obliged as he shot his dad’s prized supercar to speeds north of 200 mph, eclipsing his previous best of 195 mph in the same car.

It’s a nice video to watch and it might even be inspiring for a lot of fathers and sons out there.

For the record, I’ve never been to Idaho and I don’t know too much about the state besides it being the country’s biggest source of potatoes. But I do know that it hosts the Sun Valley Road Rally, a gathering of supercar owners who are afforded the opportunity to drive their cars to their full limit on a closed section of road. It’s an annual event, and over the last few years, it has hosted some of the finest exotics in the business. This year’s event took place on Saturday, July 23, 2016 and from what I’ve heard, there was one supercar that really stood out from the rest: a bespoke Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse L’Or Rouge that its proud owner affectionately calls “Hellbug.”

The name probably alludes to its red-and-black, two-tone color scheme with the fancy striping. It’s a hard car to miss when it was idle. But once it came time to actually flexing its muscle, Hellbug became an impossibly difficult car to keep up with. That’s because the driver and owner of the car was able to hit an incredible 230 mph on the road. It may not have approached the Veyron GSV’s overall top speed of 254 mph, but just watching the car’s odometer slowly go past 230 mph is a sight in it of itself.

It’s hard to imagine what it would be like going at that speed on a public road. But every year, supercar owners get to do just that at the Sun Valley Road Rally. And, just as it did at last year’s gathering when it hit 235.7 mph, Hellbug once again stole the show for all the right reasons.

It’s been less than a week since the Portuguese national soccer team won Euro 2016 in France, and its main star, Cristiano Ronaldo, is celebrating behind the steering wheel of his brand-new Bugatti Veyron. Also known for his passion for supercars, Ronaldo has recently taken delivery of one of the last Veyrons built. Word has it that Real Madrid’s player paid about £1.7 million (around $2.25 million) for the car. The Portuguese showcased his latest purchase on Instagram and referred to the car as an “animal.”

Ronaldo has now joined a host of sports stars that at some point owned a Veyron, including boxer Floyd Mayweather and Brazilian footballer Roberto Carlos. Also, he is now the proud owner of one of only 450 Veyrons ever built. Being one of the last vehicles to leave the company’s shop, Ronaldo’s example is a Grand Sport, which is Bugatti talk for convertible/targa.

As a reminder, the Veyron Grand Sport uses a quad-turbo, 8.0-liter W-16 engine rated at a whopping 1,184 horsepower. It needs less than three seconds to hit 60 mph from a standing start, while its top speed is an impressive 254 mph.

Automotive recalls seem to be a pretty common these days, but it’s not very often you seen a manufacturer like Bugatti show up on the recall list. The crazy part is that between March 23rd and April 8th of this year, Bugatti has issued a total of three recalls for the Bugatti Veyron. For a low-volume manufacturer like Bugatti, that is a little troubling. None of the recalls are for anything that poses and immediate risk, but they shouldn’t be taken lightly either.

The first recall that was issued on March 23rd involves certain 2006 to 2010 Veyron models, 2010 to 2012 Veyron Grand Sport models, and 2011 to 2013 Veyron Super Sport models. On these models, there are aluminum reference plates bonded to the undercarriage for jacking and lifting purposes. It was found that these plates may corrode and fall off the vehicle, potentially creating a road hazard or striking another vehicle. Bugatti techs will rivet the plates to the underbody and reseal them to alleviate the problem. A total of 87 vehicles are affected by this recall.

The next recall on the list involves the 2006 to 2010 Bugatti Veyron and 2010 to 2011 Veyron Grand Sport models. On these models, the fuel gauge may read too high, indicating that there is more fuel than there really is. To remedy the problem, Bugatti will replace the control unit for the fuel tank and update the software in the on-board computer system. This recall isn’t all that serious but, to avoid running out of gas on the road, it might be a good idea to keep the tank topped up until the repair can be completed. A total of 72 vehicles are affected by this recall.

The third recall is a little more serious than the others and affects just 2006 to 2008 Veyron models. It was found that the battery cable and its connection to the alternator may corrode and create excessive resistance in the battery cable. This will generate excessive heat, which could eventually spark a fire in the engine bay. Bugatti will replace the battery cable and clean up the corrosion on the alternator to take care of the problem. A total of 13 vehicles are affected by this recall, and to date, we haven’t heard of any fires being caused by this problem.

After many month of rumors, spy shots, and teasers, Bugatti finally introduced the Chiron at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. Developed to replace the Veyron, considered one of the greatest vehicle engineered by man, the Chiron arrived 11 years after Bugatti began producing the world’s fastest production car. With the Veyron already an iconic supercar that has set so many benchmarks, the Chiron had big shoes to fill. It had to be faster and more powerful, yet feature the same luxurious interior and the same degree of exclusivity.

Although it has yet to set a new world record as of March 2016, it’s safe to assume that the Chiron didn’t disappoint. It has a completely new design that brings together modern cues with some of Bugatti’s heritage features and sports a beefed-up version of the 8.0-liter W-16 that made the Veyron the fastest production vehicle in the world. It’s quicker from a standstill and promises to hit a higher top speed despite being about 100 pounds heavier than its forerunner.

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see the two cars being put through their paces on a test track, but until someone manages to unite a Veyron and a Chiron for a proper comparison, we’ll compare Bugatti’s record-breaking supercars using what we already know about them. Which one looks better, has the more luxurious interior, and the more impressive drivetrain? Keep reading to find out.

Ever wonder what it must feel like doing donuts in the fastest production car in the world? To my knowledge, I think I can count in one hand the number of times I’ve seen an actual Bugatti Veyron performing serious burnouts. There’s a reason for that. See, a set of Bugatti Veyron tires cost a little under $20,000. Since the Veyron uses special Michelin PAX tires, they can only be removed from the wheels in France in a process that reportedly costs around $70,000 to $80,000. That’s roughly $90,000 to $100,000 worth of replacement parts.

So yeah, people who own Veyrons don’t generally use them for burnouts because replacing those cars could put a serious dent in their wallets. But what happens when the tires themselves are so worn out that they have to replaced?

Well, magic happens. The folks over at DutchBugs happened to have with them a Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse World Record Car Edition. With those tires reportedly due for a change, they did what anybody would’ve done under the same situation. They took the special edition Veyron to an open area and proceeded to do some crazy burnouts that we’ll probably never get to see in our lifetimes again.

As for the young buck riding shotgun and bearing witness to arguably the most expensive donuts in history, that’s YouTube personality Gonth. For somebody who staked his claim to fame on YouTube, this is one heck of a video to have in his collection.

A few days we got to see the long-awaited Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron in its full glory as the tuner finally took the wraps off the finished product and revealed their one-off custom Veyron. Now the car is out there giving its owner a lot of joy, and the man is really using it, going places in it and leaving it by the side of the road so spotters can film and photograph it to their heart’s content!

There are so many different variants of the Veyron around that an uninterested eye may not notice what’s different about the Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron. So check out the video and we’ll tell you:

Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron comes with a custom, bespoke, one-off styling kit consisting of front spoiler, rear diffuser, and side skirts, complemented with a new set of wheels and a matching interior. It takes guts to modify a car as high-end as the Veyron, but Oakley has pulled it off nicely. What’s more, they’ve also upgraded the car’s W16 quad-turbo engine and boosted it from 1001 PS to 1,145 PS with 1,580 Nm of torque.

Well, it did take a loooong while, but Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron finally seems to be ready to hit the streets. The car was first announced August last year as a tuning kit for the Veyron, but it went to become this coachbuilt job as Oakley has modified pretty much every body panel.

Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron is based on a blue 16.4 Veyron which is an early model. What the tuner has done here is replace the original body panels with exposed carbon fiber complemented with yellow doors, bonnet, and fenders, and put an aero kit on as well while they were at it. The Veyron gets a neat new front spoiler, large side skirts, a new rear diffuser and tailpipe arrangement. The car also features new black wheels and, on the finished product, a matching interior.

The whole point of Oakley Design Bugatti Veyron project was to give the car a makeover so the owner wouldn’t feel the need to swap it for a Vitesse or a SuperSport. What they ended up with though is something a lot cooler than all the factory variants of the car. As mentioned, the wonderful little details on this car, the paint scheme, and the aero kit, they all make this more of a coachbuilt car than a mere tuned version of the original. What’s more, this beast has received a performance upgrade up to 1,145hp and 1580 Nm of torque. What a thing!

An example of the extremely rare and hugely expensive Bugatti Veyron Vitesse WRC (World Record Car) has become available for sale at the prestigious British dealership H.R. Owen. This low mileage gem is one of only eight Grand Sport Vitesse WRC models in the world.

Currently on display at the Jack Barclay Bugatti showroom in Berkeley Square, H.R. Owen’s Bugatti Veyron Vitesse WRC is finished in the famous black carbon and orange paint work and Arancia Mira Alcantara interior you have seen in many online videos and TV shows, including Top Gear, when James May tried to break the world speed record for a production car. He failed, but Bugatti’s own test driver accomplished that, clocking 254.04mph (408.84km/h).

Registered as a 2013 model, the 1,200 PS Bugatti Veyron Vitesse WRC has one previous owner and has covered just 1130 miles in its lifetime. That makes the £1,795,000 asking price seem kind of reasonable actually, given the fact that people these days spend upwards of 2 million on stuff like the McLaren P1 GTR which they can’t even drive on the road.

H.R. Owen and its Bugatti Brand Director Anita Krizsan remain the world most successful Bugatti dealer with a record 11 Veyrons delivered. It is also the only place where you will be able to order the new Chiron when it becomes available later this year.

The most highly anticipated car to be launched this year is, without a question or shadow of doubt, the new Bugatti Chiron, the replacement for the mighty Veyron. We have a pretty good idea what the Chiron looks like thanks to a series of very revealing spyshots.

Based on those, and using a bit of imagination, the guys at Virtuel Car have come up with this rendering of Bugatti Chiron which seems to be spot on in every detail it represents. Of course, the car is basically a road-going interpretation of the Bugatti Gran Turismo Concept. You see that in the shape of the front apron and headlights, while the side view appears to be taken straight from the Veyron. So that part might differ on the real thing.

All that said, design is not really the main highlight of Bugatti Chiron. As the successor to the world’s fastest and most powerful car, the Chiron has only one purpose and that is to beat the records of its predecessor and by a margin large enough to make sure no other car can threaten its crown in a hurry. The latest reports suggest the car has a hybrid W16 turbo powertrain with around 1,500 horsepower which enables it to reach a top speed of around 440 km/h.

There are so many different car shows and super car events going in each month in America that a significant event like the San Francisco Autoshow can end up getting kind of obscured. But judging by some of the cars on display at this event, maybe we should start paying more attention to the supercar scene in this beautiful city.

Among the top exotic cars of the San Francisco Autoshow there were a few that stood out big time. There were a unique baby blue Bugatti Veyron with come cool patterns garnishing the paint work, a naked carbon Pagani Huayra, and the new Lamborghini Aventador SV Roadster. The new Bentley Bentayga SUV was also there plus a couple of really special Continental GTs. Jaguar’s SUV, the F-Pace was also present along with different variants of the F-Type. They Brits were also represented by a number of Lotus and Aston Martins models.

Along with the modern stuff, San Francisco Autoshow also featured a few vintage cars in excellent showroom-ready condition, looking seriously tasty. An old Shelby Mustang, Gullwing Mercedes SL, first-gen Corvette, and some really old Rollers were among the main highlights.

The name of the successor to the Bugatti Veyron has been one of the worst kept secrets in the auto world, as we’ve known it for a while. But now it’s official, and we also have a definite date for its debut. The 2017 Bugatti Chiron will make its world premiere at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show next March.

Now it might feel a bit anti-climactic the way they announced what is going to be the “world’s most powerful, fastest, most luxurious and most exclusive production super sports car,” but Kudos to Bugatti for not beating around the bush like other car makers do when they come up with a new model. In fact, they’ve been so quick with their marketing efforts, they say they’ve already bagged more than 100 orders from loyal customers.

As for why the Veyron successor is called Bugatti Chiron, it is named after Louis Chiron, a legendary racing driver who won virtually all the major grands prix for the brand in the 1920s and 1930s. It is supposed to convey the same sense of success and unbreakability for the car. What an honor it is to have your name on the world’s most awesome car!

“The development brief for the Chiron can be summarised in one sentence and is probably the shortest in the history of the automobile: we want to make the best significantly better,” says Wolfgang Dürheimer, President of Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. “The Chiron will set new standards in every respect. We will continue to produce the world’s most powerful, fastest, most luxurious and most exclusive production super sports car. This is the claim of Bugatti and our customers.”

Nope, we don’t mean the Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir has dressed up as a drag queen or something. It has just taken part in last month’s Shift-S3ctor drag race and acceleration runs. That said, this is a strange enough endeavor for the Bugga to be likened to wearing drag.

You don’t normally see a Bugatti Veyron at a drag strip, challenging cars worth one-twelfth of its price, let alone a limited edition like the Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir. But it’s a rather magnificent scene nonetheless. The car accelerates like a mad man with that wing pushing its bottom down on the tarmac.

They only made 15 units of the Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir, sold in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The main highlights of the car, inspired by the Type 57S Atlantic, include black tinted carbon fibre monocoque, black and carbon body panels, chrome horseshoe grill, hand-stitched, all-leather interior in a mix of Tangerine and Piano Black, all-black front lights, air intakes, filler caps and door-handles, and blue brake calipers.

The premise of Hyper 5 is pretty simple. You get five of the world’s fastest and most powerful supercars, run independent tests on each of them around the track and on the drag strip, then document the whole thing to see which one reigns supreme. This is the first part of the series. In it, Salomon spends the entire episode giving each supercar proper introductions. None of the actual tests were done in this episode because Salomon’s apparently saving that for the second and third installments.

Be that as it may, we still get top-quality, film making production, which adds to the incredible build-up of seeing all five supercars in action. Salomon did a good job giving each car its turn in the spotlight, even pointing out that none of these exotics came from their manufacturers. They’re all customer cars, free from any modifications, and all running on stock tires.

We’re going to have to wait for episodes two and three to see how these tests end up going. As far as putting my money on any one of them, I’m going to steer clear of picking a favorite because all of them have as good a chance as any at being the best among the lot. Besides, my choice would’ve been the Koenigsegg One:1, except that it’s not part of the quintet.

Although it has yet to launch the Chiron and the Veyron is sold out since early 2015, Bugatti has extended its presence in the United States by opening two new showrooms. Bugatti’s new dealers in North America are Manhattan Motorcars in New York and Braman Motors in Miami.

“North America is a very important market for Bugatti. About a quarter of our Veyron series, which is sold out, is located in North America and customers here are showing phenomenal interest in the next Bugatti super sports car,” said Dr. Stefan Brungs, a member of the Board of Management of Bugatti Automobiles at the inauguration of the new showroom in Manhattan.

The new showrooms were used to introduce a new brand design developed specifically for Bugatti dealers. The dealerships are dominated by blue, the company’s official brand color, and complemented by distinctive lines and clear surfaces “reminiscent of Bugatti super sports cars.” The concept includes a heritage section running films and animations highlighting Bugatti’s history, a comfortable lounge area with furniture from Bugatti Brand Lifestyle (including carbon-fiber armchairs), and adaptable background lighting with the company’s red oval logo. The new dealership concept will expand to other showrooms as well.

With these two new showrooms, Bugatti now has 27 dealers in 13 countries. Further dealerships are due to open in Munich, Monaco, and Tokyo over the next few months.

Towards the end of its life as a production model, Bugatti Veyron spawned so many different editions, it really isn’t easy keeping track of them all. But among them all the Legend Editions were some of the most unique, and among them the Bugatti Veyron Rembrandt one of the most exquisite.

This is a Bugatti Veyron Rembrandt finished in two-tone brown carbon, and it is just a little bit more special than usual, owing to that fact that it’s nicknamed Khalifa, a hint at the owner’s royal status. He is apparently a Qatari prince, most likely the same guy who a while ago acted like an utter douchebag with his LaFerrari in Beverly Hills.

Bugatti Veyron Rembrandt was built in honor of Ettore Bugatti’s brother, Rembrandt. So no, it has nothing to do with the famous painter. Priced at $3 million when new, the “Rembrandt Bugatti” is based on the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse. Its 8 litre W16 engine achieves an unparalleled torque of 1,500 Nm from 1,200 PS at 3,000-5,000 rpm, and can accelerate from 0-100 km in 2.6 seconds. With a maximum speed of 408.84 km/h with the roof down, the Vitesse is the fastest production roadster ever built.